New Products and Analysis

Elections scheduled for July 2013 are the next key event on the horizon for Mali, although are likely to result in a maintenance of a governance status quo with the political elite from former president Amadou Toumani Toure's era still likely to dominate. This result would ensure a continued pro-business environment and would likely to lead to a relatively stable regulatory environment.

However, elections could be postponed to later in the year, despite the push from the international community, given the immense logistical challenges posed by an early date which would create greater regulatory uncertainty during the interim period.

Although an outbreak of open conflict is unlikely in the short- to medium-term, the security risk environment is likely to face the challenge of preventing high-impact terrorist attacks carried out at random. The deployment of a UN peacekeeping force alongside a continued, albeit reduced, French military presence, is unlikely to reduce the terrorism, or kidnapping risk; this is likely to remain present throughout the country, although lower in the south.

Meanwhile, as a landlocked country with a significant dependence on regional corridors leading to ports in Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the investment environment in the south is boosted by growing stability in these countries.